Thursday, September 10, 2009
Blog on A Study in Emerald
Of all the stories I've read in my life, no piece has ever engaged me as deeply as Neil Gaiman's, A Study in Emerald (can't figure out how to underline). The narrator successfully serves as a channel into the world in which he lives, which in this story, is centered around his curious friend, the unnamed consulting detective. The introduction to the detective is enough to make you interested in whatever interests him, because he is so observant, analytical, and as the narrator puts it so plainly: "he was a mystery." Conclusions like this are perfectly placed after descriptions of the detective's curious behavior, giving the reader the feeling that sometimes the narrator's only reason for accepting the detective's behavior is that thinking further into it would prove useless. The reader knows, not only from the descriptions of the detective, but from the narrator's resignation from understanding him, that the detective is strange and intriguing. The detective character acted as a crucial element in making the mystery captivating, because once the detective proves his prowess, it becomes interesting, wondering what he is on to when he examines the crime scene. Suspense builds as we watch the detective piece together details of the case and try to figure it out for himself. I never read Sherlock Holmes, and didn't figure out that this was a parallel until well after I finished reading it, but it is more than the mystery that I enjoyed. The craft of the writing illuminated the characters (such as when the italics for the voices of the royalty, or the note from the obviously intelligent Rache) and it created cool images (the crime scene, described as the work of an artist). The main reason I was entertained by this was that it was a strange story, but not just for the sake of strangeness; it tied together very well, but had some idiosyncratic elements that kept it interesting paragraph by paragraph.
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ReplyDeleteA Study in Emerald was actually a great read, for I had read A Study in Scarlet, one of Athur Conan Doyle's original works, and the parallels are almost too many to count. In the original story, Sherlock Holmes happens upon the murder scene and discovers the word Rache written in blood, and deduces, as does the detective in this stroy, that it stand for the German "Revenge". I won't spoil the rest for anyone who hasn't read it, but it ends quite interestingly! Surprisingly enough, in A Study in Emerald, Neil Gaiman crafts his world as the reverse of Conan Doyle's; the crime-fighting duo of Emerald are actually Holmes's most villanous rivals, and the murderers in Emerald are none other than Holmes and Watson themselves. This twist was enjoyable and certainly something I had thought about while reading the original series. Surely, if Holmes were ever to err on the dark side of justice, he would be a criminal to be reckoned with. As Neil Gaiman clearly displays, an evil Holmes is an unstoppable force.
ReplyDeleteVictory! I can comment now! I'll post my serious response this weekend!
ReplyDeleteI was also very intrigued by this short story, for much the same reasons. The detective character was fascinating, with his wit and logic. I had picked up on the Sherlock Holmes connection fairly early on, but was embarrassingly slow to catch on that there were fantasy elements to the story, even after the mention of the green blood.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the writing style was good, especially the imagery and the older writing style, which made the piece feel as though it were written a while ago. I was also very interested in the passages used between paragraphs, as they were allusions that I had heard of and served to tie the piece into a bigger world.
While reading, I was curious as to what the author’s political ideologies were, as his main characters seemed to be on the side of those who were corrupt, whereas the antagonist seemed to be committing his crimes for the good of the world. I would be interested to hear how the rest of you interpreted this.
I too wonder about Neil Gaiman's ideology. He did not make much of a point to weigh in on those issues, but he obviously characterized the anarchists as intellectuals (the paper on meteors or something).
ReplyDeleteYep, I think a lot of you have registered the inverted (subversive?) nature of A Study in Emerald. I chose to start with this story in our coursepack because it does a very good job of capturing my attention. Even though I've read it before (Sherlock Holmes) and I know I'm bumping up against allusions I don't always perceive as I read (Mythos of Klulhul, spelled different ways by its own creator, HPLovecraft), like fingers touching you in a dark room, A Study in Emerald works at the pure entertainment level, I think. Of course, Gaiman owes much to the people he is stealing from and he knows this and writes, here, a clever homage, I think. So doing he actually writes a very original work of mimicry, don't you agree? But not just. Isn't it a distorted mirror, in fact? Inside out. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR COMMENTS. KEEP THEM COMING!
ReplyDeleteI think this story was an excellent example of creative splicing. The author makes no attempt to hide the fact that neither the plot nor writing style are original. He shows his creativity, instead with character choice and setting. He does a very good job of pulling toether two completely different stories. The moriarty twist at the end was very well done, i think.
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